Sharon Salzberg and Burma December 5, 2007

This morning, insight meditation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg appeared with Tricycle editor James Shaheen on a show called “Be Happy, Dammit!” on Sirius radio at Lime 114 in a conversation with host Karen Salmansohn, bestselling author many books on happiness. For more on Karen, see notsalmon.com. Here’s a programming schedule for the channel — Be Happy, Dammit! airs weekdays at 8 AM East Coast time. Sharon is of course well known in the Buddhist community. Here are some of her recent contributions to Tricycle.

Burma, China, and Slovakia top the list of housing violators, according to the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions. And everyone’s down on Burma for excluding Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party from the talks about the new constitution. The junta might have gained some international respect and credibility from this, but it wold also be sowing the seeds of its destruction, so it’s not hard to see why things happened this way. U.N. diplomat Charles Petrie is also being forced out of the country for daring to criticize the junta on its dismal human rights record.